LBJ’s Consigliere

In researching and writing a book about Lyndon Johnson, I have uncovered the fascinating history of Edwin L. Weisl, Sr., one of the most powerful and well-connected lawyers in New York City during the 20th Century. A senior partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, a director of two of his major clients, Lehman Brothers and Paramount Pictures (and later its controlling parent company, Gulf & Western) (other clients included Hertz, The Hearst Corporation, and MCA Universal Pictures), Weisl was also the political confidant and consigliere of Lyndon Baines Johnson for virtually LBJ’s entire political career.

The Early Years

Weisl was born in Chicago on December 31, 1897. He received both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Chicago. Thereafter, Weisl was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in that city from 1920 to 1924, and later served as a Special Assistant Attorney General in Washington, D.C.

After his government service, Weisl joined Simpson Thacher, where he prospered, but he continued to keep a hand in political circles. One of his non-corporate clients was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s closest aide, Harry Hopkins.

In 1937, Lyndon Johnson, who had just won a special election to a Texas congressional seat, met Roosevelt on a presidential trip through the state. LBJ so impressed the president that FDR immediately contacted a number of his political allies (including Hopkins), telling them about the “most remarkable young man” he had just met and instructing them to “help him with anything you can.” FDR would also tell Hopkins that “if he hadn’t gone to Harvard, that’s the kind of uninhibited young pro he’d like to be. . . . [T]his boy could well be the first Southern president.” No sooner had Harold Ickes (FDR’s Secretary of the Interior) told Eliot Janeway (an up-and-coming economist from New York City, keyed into the New Deal) about LBJ (“You’ll like him”), than Janeway was contacted by his friend Ed Weisl, who reported: “I just had a funny kind of call from Harry [Hopkins]. Did you ever hear of some kid in Congress named Lydie Johnson?”

In short order Weisl and Janeway began introducing LBJ into influential Jewish circles in New York (Robert Lehman would later manage the Johnson fortune – once LBJ acquired it through Lady Bird’s purchase of a radio station in Austin and, later, a television station, also in Austin (Weisl assisted the Johnsons in the latter acquisition)). And Weisl, through his contacts on Wall Street, also began directing money to LBJ – not only for LBJ’s campaigns, but also to allow LBJ to gain influence with other congressmen who needed financing.

Networking at the Top

Eliot Janeway’s son, Michael, would later write that Weisl was: 

A tutor to my father since the 1930s in the art of networking at the top. Weisl was intensely private, never ostentatious about his powerful connections, extremely able, friendly. A lush apartment on Central Park South, a chauffeured limousine, and a good cigar at the ready were his only apparent indulgences. . . . He knew J. Edgar Hoover well. One of his sidelines was to be “of counsel” about issues large and small to a collection of New York judges, mostly Tammany Hall Democrats with whom he generally met for lunch on Sundays. One of them, a pillar of the New York City Democratic Party organization, was Judge Albert Cohn [father of Roy Cohn “the brains behind Joe McCarthy”]. . . . [Weisl] had his own way of talking to brash young Roy Cohn, and often did. Cohn . . . listened to Weisl.”

Sputnik

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched a tiny satellite, Sputnik I, into space. Then, on November 2, 1957, the U.S.S.R. sent a much larger satellite, Sputnik II, into orbit – and it had a dog inside! To America these developments were devastating – “a psychological Pearl Harbor” – the Russians had beaten us into outer space.

Lyndon Johnson stepped into a void left by President Eisenhower (who did not seem too bothered). Using the Senate Preparedness Subcommittee as his vehicle, LBJ launched what he termed a “non-partisan” investigation into how the United States had fallen behind in space and “how we can regain the leadership.”

LBJ, employing the famous “Johnson Treatment,” persuaded a reluctant Weisl to become chief counsel to the subcommittee (“You’re always being critical of me for this or that. Now here’s your chance to do something for your country.”), promising Weisl that it would take only one week. Weisl’s stay in his suite at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel would ultimately last two months. To help him, Weisl brought to Washington his protégé at Simpson Thacher, Cyrus Vance. The two men put together “a textbook example of what a Senate investigation ought to be,” with Johnson’s leadership performance publicly hailed as “a minor masterpiece” (as put by columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak). Ultimately, the three men’s work would lead to the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA).

1960

Weisl was a strong advocate of LBJ running for president in 1960, and was puzzled by the Hamlet-like indecisiveness of the Senate Majority Leader. In March 1960, Weisl arranged for Johnson to meet with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion on his visit to the United States. Weisl believed that such a public meeting (in New York City) would enhance LBJ’s stature as a national/international player. At the last minute, however, Johnson bailed on the public meeting (only later agreeing to meet Ben-Gurion at a private home in Washington, D. C., without any press coverage). Wiesl’s colleague Eliot Janeway complained to LBJ’s chief-of-staff: “Why didn’t he publicize it?. . . . He better come out and be a candidate. . . . You ought to call off this cloak and dagger business.”

On July 5, 1960, just days before the Democratic National Convention, Johnson finally announced his candidacy. But it was too late; John F. Kennedy had virtually sewn up the nomination. On July 14, the morning after JFK had (barely) won on the first ballot, the party’s new nominee asked Johnson to be his vice president. This historic episode has been rendered almost indecipherable over the ensuing sixty-five years (in large part, because of the vitriolic hatred the Kennedy family members, aides, and hagiographers had/have for Johnson). While my book on Johnson will attempt to bring light and clarity to the episode, for this article let’s just look at Weisl’s advice to LBJ when he learned of Kennedy’s offer and that Johnson was likely to accept it. From Lady Bird Johnson’s handwritten notes of Weisl’s reaction(s):

Would have to kill himself – violates every principle he holds near and dear. . . . South would consider him traitor and so would he . . . if he ever thought Lyndon would dream of doing this would never had done what he did [to help Johnson]. It is unthinkable – sellout. . . . Kennedy only using him and would destroy him.

Much of what Weisl said was (or became) true (and Weisl hated Kennedy’s anti-semitic father, who, during a heated business conflict with Paramount, said to Weisl: “I don’t have to sit here and listen to some kike lawyer.”). But LBJ thought the vice presidency was his best/only path to becoming president; John F. Kennedy, moreover, understood that, without Lyndon Johnson, his path to winning enough states to win the Electoral College (e.g., Texas and the Southern states that had voted (twice) for Eisenhower) was slim to none. So the ticket became JFK and LBJ, with Kennedy’s father assuring JFK that (notwithstanding some initial strong liberal opposition to LBJ): “Within two weeks they’ll be saying it’s the smartest thing you ever did.” Joseph P. Kennedy was right – the electoral evidence is clear that (i) without LBJ on the ticket, JFK would never have become president, and (ii) LBJ was undoubtedly the most consequential vice presidential candidate – in terms of affecting the presidential outcome – ever.

Advising the 36th President

Upon becoming president, LBJ was constantly on the phone to his consigliere, seeking advice on matters big and small. Among other things, Johnson put Weisl in charge of getting key JFK aide Ted Sorensen the top job at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), with the condition that Sorensen would still be able to work for the president as needed (this latter requirement ultimately proved to be a deal breaker for Sorensen). LBJ also sought Weisl’s counsel on: 

1- How to deflect the Bobby Baker (Little Lyndon) scandal from focusing attention on his presidency (and election chances in 1964); 

2- How to deal with his hated rival, Bobby Kennedy; 

3- Picking a successor to RFK as attorney general; 

4- The media’s investigation into how LBJ had become a multi-millionaire during his congressional and senatorial careers; 

5- What options LBJ had in Vietnam given JFK’s commitments (and Diem’s assassination); and 

6- How to handle the arrest of LBJ’s closest aide, Walter Jenkins (“my vice president in charge of everything”), for homosexual conduct in a Washington YMCA on October 7, 1964 (one month before the presidential election).

Two incidents (other than the foregoing) give a taste for how important LBJ deemed Weisl’s counsel and good judgment. The first came the day after the 1964 election.

On November 4 at 12:46 p.m., the president called Weisl to tell him “how much I loved you and what a great source of strength you’d been, and how I couldn’t have made it without [you].” One of LBJ’s few confidants not to address him as “Mr. President,” Weisl responded: “Oh Lyndon, I’ve never been so happy and proud of a man in my life.”

Then Johnson got down to the real reason for calling his consigliere. Even though he had just won by an historic margin over Goldwater, Johnson was infuriated that television talking-heads were already saying he only won because he was the lesser of two evils: “Johnson didn’t have any support, and he didn’t have any style, and he was a buffoon, and he was full of corn. . . . I had the greatest affection that had ever been demonstrated before. And the greatest loyalty. And more big business men and more labor men and more Nigras and more Jews and more ethnic groups. More everybody!” With a fair amount of additional carping about “Cornpone” and “Southern,” Johnson directed Weisl to contact the advertising agency that created the famous “Daisy Girl” commercial (it aired only once), as well as Weisl’s friends (and clients) who ran major news organizations (e.g., Dick Berlin of Hearst), and to tell them to “give this guy a chance.” Warming to the message, Johnson also directed Weisl to tell them: “This man is loved, that this man has the affection of the country, that this man won the hearts of the people, and there’s nothing like it ever happened, and let’s give him a chance, and let’s help him.”

After Weisl assured LBJ, “I will do everything I can,” the president then compared his vote margins (by state) with Roosevelt’s and Eisenhower’s totals. That led to a discussion of the Senate race in New York:

LBJ: “I guess we elected Bobby, didn’t we?”

Weisl: “Oh, sure. He ran a million seven hundred thousand votes behind you, and still was elected.”

Johnson then signed off with: “Well, let’s get busy on this Eddie, before they ruin us and make a Harding out of us [referencing the Baker and Jenkins scandals]. . . . [Y]ou’re my daddy, and I’m depending on you. Don’t turn all this money you [get] to Bobby up there, because we are going to owe about $3 million. . . . You hold some of it in your box.” (This latter reference foreshadows that Johnson would shortly install Weisl as the New York State representative to the Democratic National Committee (as well as making him chairman of the state party); in those roles, LBJ’s consiglieri would (to Bobby Kennedy’s consternation) control political patronage and money in the state through the end of Johnson’s presidency.)

The second incident took place in February 1966, and it involved LBJ’s closest White House aide, Jack Valenti. In his White House office, Valenti was host to the two most powerful men in Hollywood: Lew Wasserman (chief executive officer of MCA Universal) and Arthur Krim (chairman of United Artists). They came right to the point, offering Valenti the same job Ted Sorensen had turned down two years before: the “top leadership post” in the movie industry – head of the MPAA. Valenti told the movie moguls that it sounded like a “dream job,” “[b]ut frankly, I can’t leave the president now. He wouldn’t take kindly to it, so I have to say no to you, although I am deeply grateful.” 

Wasserman and Krim, who were very persuasive men, persisted in their attempts, and started to wear Valenti down. Once he decided he was interested in the “dream job,” Valenti discussed the subject with his wife, Mary Margeret Valenti; prior to marrying Valenti, she had been LBJ’s long-time personal secretary and mistress. Knowing her former boss (and paramour) well, Mary Margaret told her husband: “The president is going to be unhappy about this. He’s not going to like your decision. You know he doesn’t react well to anyone who chooses to leave him, and particularly someone he relies on as much as he does you.” Valenti’s wife was right.

When he broached the subject in the Oval Office, LBJ exploded. As Valenti later recounted: “To say he was pissed off is a huge understatement. . . . [T]he nicest thing he called me was ‘Benedict Arnold.’”

A shaken Valenti called Wasserman and asked for his help: “Can you and Ed Weisl chat with the president? Make it clear that I will be as accessible to him in my new job as I am right now in the West Wing.” Wasserman said that was planning to be in Washington the next week and that he would “bring Ed with me.”

The following week Wasserman and his most trusted counsel, Ed Weisl, met with President Johnson. After their meeting, they went to see Valenti. He asked them: “Well, what’s the verdict?” A smiling Weisl replied: “If you count being thrown out of the Oval Office by the president good news, then it was a happy day.”

Notwithstanding this response, the intervention started the job dial moving a bit, but ultimately it was Mary Margaret Valenti who closed the deal. Over a quiet dinner with Johnson a few days later, she delivered the silver hammer: “Mr. President, Jack believes this job will not be available for much longer. He wants it, but not if you believe that his taking it will cause you problems. We both love you, and we want to do what you believe is right.” A few days later, LBJ relented, telling Valenti to use Abe Fortas’ partner to negotiate an iron-clad contract (“These Hollywood guys are smart, and they know how to slice a contract to their benefit.”).

Postscripts

– Weisl’s legal protégé, Cyrus Vance, also became a Johnson political protégé. At the start of the Kennedy administration he was named general counsel of the Department of Defense. (Another Johnson protégé, John Connally was named Secretary of the Navy.) In July 1962, Vance became Secretary of the Army. After Johnson became president, Vance was named Deputy Secretary of Defense (ultimately leaving to spearhead the Paris Peace talks in 1967-68, aimed at negotiating an end to the Vietnam War). When the Democrats returned to power in 1977, President Jimmy Carter named Vance Secretary of State (he would resign in 1980 as a matter of principle in opposition to the (failed) mission to free the Iranian hostages). 

– Weisl was also close to another FDR protégé: William O. Douglas. Weisl had helped Douglas become chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, “put him over the rim for the Supreme Court nomination with FDR when there were five other people ahead of him,” and thought he was “20 minutes away” from engineering Douglas as FDR’s vice presidential running mate in 1944 (political boss Ed Kelly, Mayor of Chicago – where the Democratic National Convention was held – was an old friend of Weisl’s from his Assistant U.S. Attorney days in the 1920s).

– Edwin L. Weisl, Jr. was named an Assistant Attorney General in 1965 by President Johnson. Thereafter, he was head of Simpson Thacher’s Washington, D. C., office.

– Jack Valenti, in his memoirs (“This Time, This Place: My Life in War, the White House, and Hollywood” (Harmony Books 2007), wrote of Weisl in glowing terms:

Ed was the only attorney who in my long tenure in the movie industry ever represented two film companies at the same time and at the same table: Universal and Paramount. Wasserman and Paramount’s [Barney] Balaban and later Charles Bluhdorn all had the highest regard for this amazing lawyer. If Wasserman and Bluhdorn had ever a serious quarrel, they would have asked Ed Weisl to be the binding arbitrator. Quite astonishing. Indeed, when Ed died years later I had any number of famous industrialists, corporate barons, lawyers, and superrich investors come up to me to say how much they missed Ed, because he “was my best friend.” I felt the same way.